Dante Alighieri began writing his Divine Comedy in 1308 and finished it shortly before his death in September 1321. Would Dante have anything to say to us at the beginning of 2026, some 705 years later? Can we channel Dante’s spirit into forming a “barbaric yawp” in response to Trumpian America? Is Donald Trump leading our national soul on a journey to hell in the name of restoring America as a promised land, as an earthly paradise, as Paradiso? What might Dante’s vision offer us as a path for the renewal of our national soul? Here is Dante’s barbaric yawp as a channeled witness that draws directly from the Divine Comedy to provide its moral cartography to an understanding of Trumpian America. This is part of a growing chorus—a digital, video library of ancestors offering orientation, inspiration, courage and hope to a fractured America. Please be sure to look at the follow-up essay below the written text of Dante’ video: A Short, Illustrated Essay on Dante’s Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso in Trumpian America: A Cartography of the Soul of America Based on The Divine Comedy.
On a Nation That Mistakes Descent for Ascent
I, Dante Alighieri, once walked through Hell not because I desired it,
but because truth requires descent before it allows ascent.
Hear me now, America.
Your danger is not that you love greatness,
but that you have mistaken domination for greatness,
and spectacle for salvation.
You cry “Make America Great Again,”
but I ask you:
What is the nature of this greatness?
Is it the greatness of the tyrant,
who towers over others by force?
Or the greatness of the soul,
which ascends through humility, justice, and love?
I have seen the architecture of Hell.
It is built not by enemies,
but by choices—
repeated, justified, and finally worshipped.
Beware the leaders who promise paradise
while leading you downward.
In my Inferno,
the worst sinners were not always those who raged,
but those who betrayed trust,
who corrupted truth,
who turned the sacred into spectacle.
Ask yourselves:
What happens to a nation
that no longer distinguishes between truth and illusion?
It descends.
And yet—
descent is not the end.
For I also climbed the mountain of Purgatory,
where souls turned, repented, and rose.
And I beheld Paradise,
where love orders all things.
America,
you are not yet lost.
But you are at a threshold.
The path you choose now
will determine whether your story
becomes a descent into darkness
or a journey toward the light.
Choose wisely.
For the soul of your nation
is still being written.